To Walk Below the Darkened Clouds
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: In the fantasy world, things always came to the happily ever after ending. But reality wasn't so simple, nor so picture-perfect.
1. Prompt 001: Hope

**A/N: **Written for the 10_prompt challenge on lj. Also posted on lj (link to journal in profile).

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**To Walk Below the Darkened Clouds  
Prompt #001: Hope**

With his eyes closed and senses numbed by the tears tricking down his cheeks, he was aware of very few things in the world around him. Just the weight and warmth of the body in his arms, the hands clutching the shirt on his back, the sound of machines beeping around him and that of air hitting plastic close to his ears…and that was enough. It was enough to say his tears flowed only from relief, where they had once flown in anguish clawing at his heart and a desperate hope. Enough to say tragedy had been avoided, that the tale in which all had contributed was going to be wrapped by a happy ending. Enough to cling to that like an anchor, almost afraid to let it go again lest it should vanish like the wisps of a mirage on the dry desert wind.

No, he didn't want to let go. He didn't think he _could_, as close as he had come to losing his brother: the boy almost identical to him and yet so different and now drained within his embrace, retaking life with unsteady breaths aided by the mask over his nose and lips.

Yes…A smile slid upon his face as he buried his face into his twin's hair, smelling that scent for the first time. Surprisingly, it was a modest blend of earth, apples and maple leaves, melting together to just touch the edge of his senses. He recorded the scent to memory, thinking all the while that it was, at that moment, enough to stay like that just a little more.

The rest of the world would simply have to wait.


	2. Prompt 002: Darkness

**A/N: **Written for the 10_prompt challenge on lj. Also posted on lj (link to journal in profile).

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**To Walk Below the Darkened Clouds  
Prompt #002: Darkness**

Kouichi found his eyes weren't focusing properly, but for the first few minutes it didn't matter as their function was of no use to him. All that mattered were the tears that ran down dry cheeks, the warmth that softened frozen limbs and the embrace that washed away the strange numbness that clung stubbornly to his injured frame.

But then that sensation was gone, replaced by a whirlwind of sound and activity he could barely keep up with. Light was repeatedly shone into his eyes, and it took him a moment to understand they were looking for – and apparently receiving – signs of a concussion. His poor head was also fingered and prodded until the sharp pain that came from the initial touch faded into a constant but dull ache.

By that point he was left alone and having trouble recalling anything more than sporadic threads of the near-past. The world was still wrought in moving shadows, and sleep was a long time coming in consequence; snakes shuffled around corners, faceless monsters leapt out before vanishing into a haze – it made his nerves jittery and his heart thump rapidly in its prison, both refusing to listen to the rationale.

Yes, sleep took a long time in coming. And when it finally claimed him, it teased him in the cruellest way, withholding the rest he so desperately needed and filling the blank void with a wild coldness that froze the edges of his haunting shadows.

He awoke with a shrill scream dying upon his lips and an emptied needle slipping out of his arm. Something warm splashed on his face, but whatever it was failed to take with it his nightmare's chills.


	3. Prompt 003: Celestial

**A/N: **Written for the 10_prompt challenge on lj. Also posted on lj (link to journal in profile).

Sorry for the delay. I keep on forgetting. The drabbles are all done though, so no worries about that.

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**To Walk Below the Darkened Clouds  
Prompt #003: Celestial**

His brother's forehead was glowing.

It wasn't the first time Kouji had seen as such, but the only other experience was so monumental he found himself automatically connecting it to the current occurrence. The iridescent sheen was reflected off a thin layer of sweat coating a blank face; deep in unconsciousness, not sleep, demons could not penetrate the mind any more than discomfort could. Once the sedative effects began to wear off, more expression would come into that face and form nestled comfortably amidst unassuming white.

He looked so innocent and beautiful and yet lifeless that he couldn't help but recall the same form with open eyes instead, eyes the texture of turpentine with whatever clogged remnants of life running out with trails of water invisible to human sight. It was then that Ofanimon's symbol had shone in all its light upon the pale forehead: a glow gentle enough to enable him to continue to look into his brother's eyes without strain as his soul returned to push open the doors from within.

So it was natural to imagine a similar scene, an awakening of sorts as the sterile hospital light reflected into his eyes. It was not intense enough to force him to wince, as it did when rebounding off the metal bedpost or the ECG screen and on occasion the bag of nutrients or medication attached to the intravenous tube. Rather, it was dampened somehow, but it did not occur to him to think it was due to the lesser reflective surface than a difference in the origin of that light.

He felt the warmth in that skin and recall the coldness that had sat in it before, when he had clutched the still form in a feverish panic as it hovered on the edge of the waterfall of death. It wasn't until a nurse came in and felt the forehead herself that the possibility of a fever had been raised.

A doctor came in a few minutes later with a thermometer, an obstruction to which Kouichi made a slight noise of protest. That was accompanied by a slight twitch from an arm, then an exposed toe, then under the blankets in an attempt to toss and turn without the physical motility to do so. His face too scrunched slightly: a slight tightening of eyelids, a lowering of the mouth.

Kouji lightly touched his brother's forehead with his own; he savoured the warmth, and the other quietened, unconsciously savouring the feeling of heat drifting away from his feverish form.


	4. Prompt 004: Beautiful

**A/N: **Written for the 10_prompt challenge on lj. Also posted on lj (link to journal in profile).

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**To Walk Below the Darkened Clouds  
Prompt #004: Beautiful**

The waking world had never seemed so beautiful to his eyes, and he found the thought quite ironic because he'd thought the same of the Digital World: a world his waking eyes had, in essence, never seen.

It had been a dream, in a sense. His body as a physical entity recalled none of it even if the memories of the soul remained engraved…or so he hoped. At times, particularly when his mind was caught in a net amidst dregs of sleep and sedation, he could feel those precious imprints slipping away and he would find himself unwilling to remain slave to that mist keeping his night terrors at bay.

His memories were more precious than his peace. And he refused to sacrifice them. Even when they impinged upon his sanity he stubbornly clung to them, refusing to relinquish his grip.

And each night the shadows grew just a little more, and he hugged the darkness just a little closer until it was cutting into his chest and trickles of blood were seeping onto the shield that protected him. A shield kept alive once by mere thoughts floating in the night sky till words repeated like a mantra anchoring it in place.


	5. Prompt 005: Awe

**A/N: **Written for the 10_prompt challenge on lj. Also posted on lj (link to journal in profile).

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**To Walk Below the Darkened Clouds  
Prompt #005: Awe**

Kouichi was normally docile, but once his mind became set on something it was very difficult to deter him. For reasons unexplained, he had refused the medicine offered to help him rest. The consequence was interrupted rest from the demons that haunted him from the shadows of his unconsciousness, and a few days were enough to invite dark bags under his eyes and a pallor in his skin that could rival his previously comatose state.

Normally, an adult would have been awed by that stubbornness, particularly in a personality that rarely exhibited such grounding. Even in the current situation it was difficult for the doctor to not find himself impressed; boys several years his senior would have probably caved by the point where they looked dead on their feet.

And they certainly would not be still able to exhibit perfectly natural smiles, like he did every time his family surrounded him. And it was contagious too; the doctor had to berate himself afterwards. After all, visiting hours _were_ enforced for a reason…but it was difficult to enforce them when the patient looked like a living ghost in their absence.

Sometimes he wished it wasn't Tokyo; their hospitals were simply too busy. The boy was, in all retrospect, lucky to still have a hospital bed. If it was Kimura-san alone, he would be suffering all symptoms in a little apartment complex, but the unexpected union had led the father to lend a hand and between his prestige and reputation, he was able to secure better care than a single mother could provide.

And really, he needed it. It was only an overpopulated world in which things were no longer ruled by need wherein a boy with a definite and yet undefined head injury would be turned away without, at the very least, a full diagnosis.


	6. Prompt 006: Chorus

**A/N: **Written for the 10_prompt challenge on lj. Also posted on lj (link to journal in profile).

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**To Walk Below the Darkened Clouds  
Prompt #006: Chorus**

Kouji held a professional interest in music; he took guitar lessons once a week and, to an extent, enjoyed them even if had been less over the past few years. Somehow, he had grown to underappreciate them…

…but when he returned to them after the Digital World, he found something attractive in the motion, the mind-blowing symphonies that he tried almost clumsily to mimic; somehow, it was beautiful, soothing and uplifting all the same.

So that weekend he brought his guitar with him, thinking perhaps the music would cheer his brother up as well.

It was a one-man chorus, but his practice was a solo one and for a single audience. Compared to his Sensei, his work was poor, unrefined. But it was the thought that counted. The intention.

And that morning, they both allowed themselves to be lost in the gentle breeze, eyes closed against the clouds.


	7. Prompt 007: Sadness

**A/N: **Written for the 10_prompt challenge on lj. Also posted on lj (link to journal in profile).

I've had a brain CT before, and I'm getting an MRI…but the waiting lists are pretty long so while I do have an appointment and will probably have gone there by the time this is posted up on ffn, I haven't during the time I'm writing this and posting it on lj.

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**To Walk Below the Darkened Clouds  
Prompt #007: Sadness**

Kouichi was always a tad on the small side, but he looked positively minute in the MRI machine. A second CT had failed to demonstrate any abnormalities but while the night terrors and memory problems could be written off as psychological trauma the recurrent headaches and fevers were more likely to tend towards the physical nature. Even most sleep problems could be traced back to a biological source.

The MRI was a lot bigger than the CT; in essence it searched using different methods to the CT and its ability to find abnormalities far surpassed that of the potentially more damaging CT.

Ironic that CTs were the first option after a simple X-ray…but they _were_ a lot cheaper.

The size of the MRI machine spoke of its higher maintenance cost and efficiency. It also made the boy look unbearingly small.

And reminded the Doctor of a time mere weeks ago, wherein the boy had looked just as small; a lifeless form on a blank stretcher that looked impossibly large with no movement nor sound emitting.

At least the trek towards a cure looked happier.


	8. Prompt 008: Overwhelmed

**A/N: **Written for the 10_prompt challenge on lj. Also posted on lj (link to journal in profile).

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**To Walk Below the Darkened Clouds  
Prompt #008: Overwhelmed**

The inside of the machine was frightening. Dark and wide spaced and lonesome. It was hard to remember it was supposed to help him. Hard to remember his family and friends were just a door away from him.

He wished he could call out to them, _talk to them_… The doctor had said it would be okay, but the words were trapped his throat, their characters in the depths of his mind. Fear squashed it; it was far too remnant of a world he could barely remember – that lay between the real and the digital world, and those words of life and death.

It reminded him too closely of the night terrors that left behind crawling skin and a skittish feeling without concrete. And the little blinking lights scattered about only served to strengthen the shadows that lurked behind them.

He squeezed his eyes shut, telling himself those shadows were simply figments of his imagination, a consequence of his still slightly impaired eyesight, and not a reality that haunted him.

But it was an overwhelming sensation with nothing to cling to, to see or to hear…

And somehow, outside, Kouji must have felt it too. Kouichi knew afterwards he would remember little, if anything, but that wasn't important. The simple sound was enough to carry light with it through the storm.

He was the warrior of darkness, but not _that_ darkness. His darkness was the other half of light. Not the absence thereof.

But even Kouji's voice wasn't enough. It was fading, fuzzing out. Everything was fading into flashes of white and darkness and shadow…


	9. Prompt 009: Missing

**A/N: **Written for the 10_prompt challenge on lj. Also posted on lj (link to journal in profile).

A bit of biology; pressure build-ups/bruises inside the brain are far more problematic and lethal when they're completely enclosed in the brain. Having a skull abrasion can actually be life-saving in that situation, because it lets the fluid pressure out.

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**To Walk Below the Darkened Clouds  
Prompt #009: Missing**

It turned out they _had_ been missing something after all: a slight abrasion in and within the skull that both the X-ray and the CT had failed to pick up. A slight increase of pressure in the cranial capacity: not enough to be fatal (which according to the neurologist was a miracle in itself, never mind he'd already gone through a miracle that month) but enough to cause some progressive problems.

And apparently it didn't matter that the brain was so fragile an organ that surgery was difficult, because the art of reverting swellings in brain tissue to their rightful state had not been perfected. That meant, the neurologist explained, that either he would have to live with the damage and adjust to it…which may diminish in possibility at a later stage should other complications arise.

The other option was to lesion the area entirely. A small loss of function to play for some piece of mind.

Of course, that too was dangerous. And normally not advisable. But seizures were worrisome things and, if Kouichi didn't accept the medication, the only hope.

If a frightening one.


	10. Prompt 010: Clouds

**A/N: **Written for the 10_prompt challenge on lj. Also posted on lj (link to journal in profile).

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**To Walk Below the Darkened Clouds  
Prompt #010: Clouds**

It was a murky situation, a murky decision. Kouichi was a minor; his guardians could force the medication upon him and they tried, because they knew cutting into a person's brain was risky business even if it ultimately provided a permanent solution…when successful. But they soon discovered the reasons behind his initial aversions.

Even if were only the children who could really understand the babbling panic and mumbles of a digital world and spirits and digimon and names that not even Kouichi could recall long enough to tell them.

He couldn't live like that; whatever the drugs stole to give him a temporary respite, it was not something he would sacrifice. Not something he _could_ sacrifice, despite what it cost.

It was a silver lining he clung to through the terrors of an incomplete darkness: a darkness without light. And he sought refuge behind another darkness: the one that rode upon the wings of the light.

And he let the light steal it away, because it only took physical risk and pain. Darkness, not his darkness, demanded a different price.

For how could one walk under a cloud with the knowledge no silver lining remained?


End file.
